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‘It hurts’ is the first thing Xie Lian thinks as he feels the sword’s blade pierce his heart.
‘I deserve this’ is the second thing Xie Lian thinks as he feels the blade leave his heart for mere moments before it’s replaced by the feeling of his stomach being pierced.
‘It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.’ The words become Xie Lian’s mantra as that sword shears through the flesh and fat clinging to his weary bones.
Xie Lian feels with visceral clarity every slash and slip of the blade through his body, the jarring slide of the blade catching on the jagged ends of his ribcage.
He can feel his wrists bruise, can feel the rough irritation of his skin as he thrashes and struggles beneath the bindings keeping him sprawled across the flat of the altar.
Offerings of days past carelessly strewn across the floors by the people lined up, single file all for the single purpose of fatally wounding him in the scant belief it would cure them of the Human-Face disease.
The disease that had ravaged Xie Lian’s kingdom, his life, so thoroughly that such a scant few were left alive, a mere hundred remained of the thousands he once cherished as his people. Those same hundred now gathered with rage and regret and so much fear that it has led to this, Xie Lian’s last sacrifice for the remnants of Xianle.
Even as Xie Lian’s mind screams and cries, even as he belatedly registers the feeling of salty warm tears streaming down his face he meets the eyes of the child approaching the altar, sword shaking in the boy's grasp, and he smiles .
He smiles and nods, mouths encouragement towards the mere child, wishing desperately that they hadn’t cut his throat so deeply and frequently that it was nothing more than viscera and gore. So that he may speak properly to the boy who will have to live with doing what he is, knowing no better than to trust the adults around him.
He holds none of the hatred and anger many would hold of being forced into such a situation, he stopped struggling after the first ten or so, although he supposes it would be a bit difficult to struggle as he distantly registers the feeling of his blood escaping his mangled body so quickly he is suprises the blood-loss hasn’t knocked him out.
Xie Lian swears it to himself and his people that he will endure every agony filled second of his punishment, he will not let his immortal body succumb to the blood-loss nor the mental strain, he owes it to every person who died in agony and horror beneath the feeling of anguished faces forming on their bodies.
He owes it to them all, to all of them .
So he bears it all with a bloody-lipped smile, he smiles through the agony, through the feeling of each and every nerve in his body being set alight with the feeling of that blood-smeared blade entering and exiting his body in the same spots over and over, and over again.
Bears it all with a strained smile closer to a grimace as he feels what may the remains of his kidneys slip out and away from the torn edges of his chest and the holes sides. Even as the wet splat of it hitting the floor feels like a promise that pain will be all Xie Lian feels for what may be the rest of his ever-immortal life.
Xie Lian accepts that theory with little argument, because truly he does not believe even his immortal and healing body will ever truly heal from this, will ever heal from his body becoming so mangled he resembles the wolf-ravaged carcass of a cow.
Even as the cursed shackles keep him alive and conscious through his pain-blurred haze of existence in this moment. Xie Lian will not heal, the thought hits him with a sort of finality because even as he sees the light filter in through the flaps covering the entrance of the temple he knows this will never end.
The line of people convinced that killing a person will keep them safe from the disease seems never-ending as Xie Lian goes numb to the pain, he registers little after he watches that blade now dulled by layers upon layers of dried and fresh blood pierce through the center of his forehead.
Xie Lian can feel the scant amount of spiritual energy he had built up from the world around him scramble to heal him and the incoming brain hemorrhage gathering as the blood leaks out from the back of his head.
The last thing Xie Lian registers as the line of people dwindle to barely a handful is his body made of nothing more than viscera and gore jolt as his nerve endings finally die from his injuries.
Xie Lian jolts so harshly he is surprised the pain of even the slightest twitch of his fingers had previously inspired does not register past the numbness that has coated him just as his blood and guts and what remains of his shattered and scratched bones covers the altar.
The altar was white once, Xie Lian thinks with startling clarity as the sword finally exits his body for the last time and he allows his head to loll to the side, his cheek meeting the once-cold marble now warmed by his blood.
Xie Lian holds little hope that the altar would ever be any other color than red in the infinite future. No amount of scrubbing would ever clean this altar of Xie Lian’s blood, blood that has dripped into and coated every crack and crevice conceivable on its surface.
Drip
Drip
Drip
Is the noise Xie Lian’s blood spilling across smooth and slippery edges of marble towards the stained floor makes.
Until it all falls silent within the temple, until the blood dries and drips no longer and Xie Lian smiles in the silence, his blood smeared across the altar.